Illegal Prime

Definition

An illegal prime is a prime number that represents information whose possession or distribution is forbidden in some legal jurisdiction.

History

The possibly first discovered illegal prime number is:

                                                          4
85650 78965 73978 29309 84189 46942 86137 70744 20873 51357
92401 96520 73668 69851 34010 47237 44696 87974 39926 11751
09737 77701 02744 75280 49058 83138 40375 49709 98790 96539
55227 01171 21570 25974 66699 32402 26834 59661 96060 34851
74249 77358 46851 88556 74570 25712 54749 99648 21941 84655
71008 41190 86259 71694 79707 99152 00486 67099 75923 59606
13207 25973 79799 36188 60631 69144 73588 30024 53369 72781
81391 47979 55513 39994 93948 82899 84691 78361 00182 59789
01031 60196 18350 34344 89568 70538 45208 53804 58424 15654
82488 93338 04747 58711 28339 59896 85223 25446 08408 97111
97712 76941 20795 86244 05471 61321 00500 64598 20176 96177
18094 78113 62200 27234 48272 24932 32595 47234 68800 29277
76497 90614 81298 40428 34572 01463 48968 54716 90823 54737
83566 19721 86224 96943 16227 16663 93905 54302 41564 73292
48552 48991 22573 94665 48627 14048 21171 38124 38821 77176
02984 12552 44647 44505 58346 28144 88335 63190 27253 19590
43928 38737 64073 91689 12579 24055 01562 08897 87163 37599
91078 87084 90815 90975 48019 28576 84519 88596 30532 38234
90558 09203 29996 03234 47114 07760 19847 16353 11617 13078
57608 48622 36370 28357 01049 61259 56818 46785 96533 31007
70179 91614 67447 25492 72833 48691 60006 47585 91746 27812
12690 07351 83092 41530 10630 28932 95665 84366 20008 00476
77896 79843 82090 79761 98594 93646 30938 05863 36721 46969
59750 27968 77120 57249 96666 98056 14533 82074 12031 59337
70309 94915 27469 18356 59376 21022 20068 12679 82734 45760
93802 03044 79122 77498 09179 55938 38712 10005 88766 68925
84487 00470 77255 24970 60444 65212 71304 04321 18261 01035
91186 47666 29638 58495 08744 84973 73476 86142 08805 29443

On 19 March 2001 Phil Carmody published an article explaining that, when expressed as a hexadecimal number, this prime forms a gzip file of the original C source code (sans tables) that decrypts the DVD movie encryption scheme (DeCSS).

The same code can also be expressed in Brainfuck (a Turing complete programming language – just in case).

2015–10–17